


Out!

by NorthwesternInsanity



Category: Dokken, Music RPF
Genre: Band Drama, Fluff, Humor, Multi, Ride in the car
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 07:56:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: Dokken has a meeting at George's house on a break in the Tooth and Nail tour to discuss what they have done so far for what is to become Under Lock and Key. But with a new idea, George and Jeff aren't so inclined to leave their writing hideaway in George's house. Don is curious. George is aggravated because Don is curious. Jeff is just happy to hang out and write with George. And Don decides that maybe having an excuse to just kick back and hang out with Mick isn't such a bad thing. Pure fluff.





	Out!

"Jeff!" called George across his house.

"Yeah, George?"

Jeff was coming out of the guest bathroom, having just gotten dressed after taking a shower. He'd spent the night with George, jamming and looking over the stuff they had on the four track in preparation for a meeting with Don and Mick at his house today in less than an hour. They were planning to discuss what they'd worked on while still on tour for _Tooth and Nail_ so that Don could start thinking up lyrics to put to what Jeff and George had, and Jeff and George could see if they had any ideas that could go to lyrics Don already had. Mick and Don were probably on their way already.

"Quick, Jeff, we gotta get in the hidey hole before they get here!"

"What, you got another idea?" asked Jeff, perking up and running through the hall to get to George. "I gotta hear it and see what we can do."

"Yeah, let's go work on it now!"

"Don and Mick are coming," reminded Jeff. "We gotta be here so they can get in."

George opened the house door, unlocked the glass storm door, let it close without latching entirely, and pushed the inside door closed again to be slightly ajar.

"It's open," said George nonchalantly. "They can get in."

"Shouldn't we work with them on it so we all can contribute to it?" asked Jeff.

"Oh, no -this one is going to be perfect. I have just the right idea for it, but it can't be touched until I have the guitar line settled with you. Don cannot have any influence on it until it's time to add lyrics, period. And yeah, he's gonna have a fucking cow over it, but I don't care if we're in there where he can't bother us with it! We have free reign to do whatever we want down there, I have the idea, and we're gonna make it happen together."

Any initial apprehension Jeff had thinking that maybe they should at least wait until Don and Mick arrived to say what they were doing disappeared then. There was nothing more fun sometimes than sitting in the small back room George had.

"Alright, hold on one second -I'll meet you down there."

Jeff ran back down the hall to get his bass from the bedroom. In the front hallway, George went through the chipped paint closet door bearing a _Keep out; private_ sign that led down to the room he and Jeff affectionately called the 'hidey hole'.

It had an odd layout -a half-staircase down into it from the door of about five steps down, then this small hallway like structure that made a tight turn to the left at the bottom of the stairs. That opened up into a small, low-lying room with tiny windows along the upper edges of one wall, showing the room was mostly underground. Hence the name they'd given it. With how hidden it was from outside the house, and being behind an unimposing, squeaky closet door from inside, it was easy to miss.

Jeff remembered the days working on completing _Tooth and Nail_ with George in that hidey-hole. That was before George had been able to replace the old furniture in there. A couch that was saggy and had deflated cushions to where the frame underneath poked through as if the cushions weren't even there, and the two hard chairs that didn't seem to give any beneficial support for sitting for a long time despite how sturdy they were. George had called it the 'uncomfortable living room' at that time, as it had the layout of a living room with the couch and two chairs, only with the four track in it. It was the best place in the house to protect the four track and write in isolation from any distractions, so he'd chosen to accept its flaws.

Despite its lack of comfortable furnishings, Jeff and George found themselves crashing down there many a time rather than going back upstairs for George to go to sleep in his bed, and for Jeff to take the spare bedroom after a long night up of jamming and writing. They'd even taken to bringing pillows and blankets down there from the bedrooms to make it less uncomfortable, and Jeff had brought an old sleeping back that they could unzip and spread out on the floor like a giant mat to sit or lie down on. Despite the beat up furniture and how unpleasant it was, the room had a downright cozy feeling to it with their efforts. The central heating to the house didn't reach the lowered room, but on the rare nights that it got cold, George brought a space heater down from the upstairs, and the glowing heat that radiated from it reminded Jeff of sitting in front of the fireplace at home as a kid when the Illinois winter storms raged outside.

Then, George had been able to replace the furniture and get a desk to work at instead of writing stuff down against their laps after _Tooth and Nail_ not only did well, but better than they could have hoped for -which was nothing short of a miracle. And even though getting the furniture in and out through the narrow bend around the stairs had been an incredible pain, the room was nothing that could be fairly called uncomfortable anymore -so Jeff and George opted to rename it together. "The hidey hole", because it was hidden away, and if it weren't for the fact that they didn't have all the necessities to live down there, both were certain they would stay hidden for a week straight just playing with the four track and enjoying themselves.

By the time Jeff got back, closed the door behind him, and descended the stairs, George already had their amps plugged in and ready to go. The amps were now in an outlet going to a newly upgraded circuit breaker so that it wouldn't overload and trip every couple of hours, leading to one of them having to run upstairs to the kitchen to reset it. Which meant more extended time they could go at it.

"Ready?" asked George as Jeff plugged his bass into his amp and sat down next to George on the couch.

"Yeah," said Jeff. "Got any ideas as to what you want to call it?"

"Something relating to lightening," said George, "because the leads are going to strike like it!"

"Alright, you start, and I'll jam with you and see if we can come up with something complimentary."

"Can?" laughed George, giving Jeff a playful, tickling poke in the ribs so that Jeff curled in yelping with giggles. "You will. Come on." He put his guitar up in his lap and grabbed a guitar pick from his pocket.

Jeff picked up his bass and sat up, eyes aglow, carefully watching and listening and George tore into his new idea.

 

Meanwhile, Don and Mick were in the car, finally getting off the main road and turning onto the back roads leading to George's house.

"Alright, it's up ahead like three blocks where we turn right, and you have to watch for that tree that kind of has a weird split in it," reminded Don, reading off his notes while Mick drove. The road to turn down to get to George's house didn't have a street sign on the easiest corner to approach it from, and it was easy to miss.

Mick chuckled. "I know what to look for, Don. I do this more than you do."

Mick knew the way to George's by heart by now, but after having missed the turn and gone around in circles for half an hour trying different side streets, Don was always paranoid of wasting time by missing it again. Ordinarily, he liked to get lost on side streets and look at all the different places, but when it led to a fight later, not so much. So he was insistent on having a reminder of what to look for. Even when Mick would take Don with him in his car so he shouldn't have to worry about it.

"I just want to make sure this is productive if I'm going to spend the day there with him," Don sighed.

"You said you already have lyrics on 'It's Not Love', and George made a guitar line for it on the road, then you've got lyrics you want them to write around -the song about lies, then the jaded one, and that 'Will the Sun Rise' one you even have a tune for, right?"

"Yes." Don pointed out the window. "Don't miss the turn!"

Mick shook his head, grinning as he took the turn without using his turn signal, knowing Don was listening for him to put it on as an indicator of knowing.

"Mick!" groaned Don, burying his face in his hands and shaking his head.

_"Don!"_ imitated Mick.

"You know it drives me crazy when you do that -use the turn signal, for crying out loud." Don leaned against the window, mouth turning down in a pout.

"Hey, don't worry about it. We've already got stuff together -it's not like we're coming off the road with nothing." Mick turned off the narrow street into George's long, narrow driveway, which went past another house that was in front of it and closer to the road. "And see? We made it, and we didn't get lost!"

"It's not getting lost, it's going on an adventure," corrected Don. "Which is all good -if we're not trying to do this first." He got out of the car as Mick stopped and parked.

"I think they're already playing," said Mick as he walked toward the porch. "I hear some guitar sounds, but it's muffled."

Don stopped in his tracks, listening carefully to see if he could place where the sound was coming from.

"Probably downstairs with that four track." Don began walking toward the house again, catching up to Mick, who was already on the front stoop. "Funny, I never heard them play that pattern on the road or discuss it. It might be something new. They better not have locked us out while they're working on that-"

"The door's open." Mick pulled open the storm door. "We'll just let ourselves in, and we'll see if they come up to us."

Don followed Mick inside. Mick headed to the living room -the true one on the main floor of the house -and camped himself out on the couch to wait, but Don was curious, and decided to go digging to see what this new guitar line was all about.

He knocked on the door leading down to the lower room.

No answer. He did hear low murmurs as George and Jeff were talking, and Jeff picking out a couple of bass patterns with slight differences. Don suspected Jeff was asking George what he liked better. As they were talking, he knocked again, knowing that without instruments playing, they could hear him.

"George, Mick and I are here and ready. Would you care to tell us about whatever that is you're working on?"

"Quiet," George whispered to Jeff, reaching an arm out and hugging Jeff to his side as best as he could with a bass and a guitar getting in the way. "Just don't answer him. We'll talk about it when we're done. For now, we stay hidden down here."

Jeff slid his bass strap around so his bass was on the other side of him and wouldn't feedback against George's guitar, then hugged George with both arms. Which only gave George further reason in his mind to keep the door shut and leave Don up there.

Don didn't hear any answer.

_Oh, ignoring and pretending we're not here when we thought we'd managed to make a so-called agreement -that's nice. Isn't that special?_

"You know, George, I'm pretty sure you can hear me." Don's voice dripped with sarcasm.

Jeff giggled some more.

"Yeah, I can. I wish I didn't," murmured George, turning to Jeff and shushing his giggles. "Let's just keep playing and try and block-"

The door latch clicked as Don opened it at the top of the stairs.

"George?"

George sprang up from the couch and around the corner so fast that all Jeff saw was a blur of him. Had there been footsteps following the door opening to suggest Don had dared to walk down the stairs, Jeff wouldn't have wanted to know the consequences.

"OUT!" shouted George as forcefully as Don had ever heard him shout, flying into the corner bend and blocking the set of steps at the bottom. "OUT; OUT; OUT!" 

Ordinarily, Don would have responded right away, but George's instantaneous reaction had him taken aback.

"Fine. I'll give you two some more time, even though we agreed we were all working together right now. Don't be surprised when I keep asking what it is you two are working in now," he spoke, voice low and bitter.

George rolled his eyes, came up the stairs, pushed Don back, and slammed the door just as hard as he could.

_Well, I'm not ever gonna do THAT again,_ decided Don. He would knock on the door for sure, but opening it wasn't worth all that craziness.

Mick flinched, hearing the door slam after George's shouting. That hadn't worked out well -but not short of what he would have expected from Don poking around. He flipped through the TV channels listlessly to see if there was anything good on. He looked over as Don came back into the room, looking annoyed, and a little embarrassed.

"Any word?" he asked, trying to act as though he hadn't heard anything.

"None that George will tell me. Give it like twenty minutes and I'll see if I can get a word out of him aside from 'out,' and have him not look like he's going to kill someone," Don grumbled, slinging himself down on the couch and landing with a hard _whump!_

Mick snorted.

"Why do I get the feeling it's not gonna happen?"

"Because it's probably not," Don groaned, "and he's going to take over the whole day, and we're not going to get anything done that we actually planned to get done. Because you know that when they go down there, they don't plan on coming out for a few hours at the least. I still only know two of the tracks we discussed yesterday, and unless I try and come up with alternate lyrics to them, I've got nothing to do." He flipped open his lyric notebook and began brooding over his lyric drafts.

Mick turned back to the TV.

_Uh-oh. I'm not going to start in on that talk. I'm not even going to answer. I'm just gonna sit here and watch TV. Or pretend I'm actually interested in whatever this shit is. What the hell is this anyway?!_ Cringing at the strange, soap-like scene on, Mick picked up the remote and began flipping channels to see if there was anything better on.

Deep down, he was kind of amused that George had been shouting "out", as Don had kind of asked for it. Not so much about Don being in a bad mood and winding himself up into a mode which he would be prone to arguing with George over everything later.

Whatever he was playing downstairs with Jeff sounded interesting. Driving, with a hard edge. Harder than some of the songs Don had focused on, and Mick preferred a harder edge. But, they agreed to share, so they had their balance of ballads and hard rocking songs. Don would have some part of adding the lyrics at the least, so he would probably be fine with it once he knew what was going on.

Until Don knew though, Mick had a feeling he wasn't going to settle down, thinking of all the possible things that would happen with it.

Sure enough, half an hour later, he saw Don getting up from the chair he was in and heading back out in the hallway.

"Don, I wouldn't recommend that!" he called.

"I'm not going to open it this time," he called back.

"So we have two demo guitar tracks layered on this four track tape, and the bass line, and when we get on it together, we can record over the bass one so that Don and I can sing together on that, and Mick will have his track to himself -then we take that to the studio when we get in, and do an official take knowing what we want," decided Jeff. "And you wanted to redo the one guitar track with a different lead on that riff, right?"

"Yeah, I think it'll sound better that way," said George. "And maybe if-"

A knocking came at the door.

"Oh, for-" George growled.

"Alright, you'd better get that whether you want to or not, because he's only going to keep going, or it's going to make him mad," warned Jeff. "We did say we were meeting, so it's only fair to give some acknowledgement if we're going to stay down here longer."

George got up and stormed around the corner and up the stairs. He wrenched the knob loudly, unlatching the door. Then, cracking it open just enough for him to stick his upper body through, he shot Don the most baleful, disgruntled look possible. 

"What have I told you a hundred times?"

Glaring, but ignoring George's rhetorical question, Don continued right along with what he had to say.

"You all didn't show me that riff when we discussed what we were coming up with on the road; can you tell me about it so that I can start coming up with-?"

George pointed forcefully to the "Keep Out" sign on the door.

"I said _no!"_

"What-?"

"No; go! Go somewhere else. We're busy. Out!"

Don shook his head and groaned. He turned around and went away, not knowing how else to respond. George's expression was threatening enough that he decided if wasn't worth pushing past him through that door to see what was going on. 

_At least they are working on something and not just blowing this off while they coke it up in there,_ he told himself. Of course, it was possible they were doing coke anyway -which wasn't a comforting thought. Knowing where that had started to become a problem on the last tour, Don wasn't sure if he was happy or worried that it was out of sight. Jeff had a tendency to get paranoid and hide, and George's refusal to open the door somewhat resembled it. 

He had a feeling it was a problem that was going to get worse on the next tour. A lot worse.

Mick raised his eyebrows, visibly trying to keep from laughing as Don came back into the sitting room looking a little uncertain.

"Well?" he asked, voice trembling on the edge of a snicker.

"Still can't get anything out of him," said Don, shaking his head and sinking back down on the couch next to Mick. "And not a peep from Jeff, just George guarding the door like a hypersensitive bouncer. I'd keep going, but you'd think he was set to kill!"

"Don, George doesn't want you there to begin with, not even considering how you two fight like cats." Mick shrugged with a wistful grin. "Let's face it. You might as well poke a stick at a rabid raccoon!"

The image of a raccoon sticking its head out of a burrow in the ground and hissing popped itself into Don's head and compared itself to George before he could stop it. With George's two-toned, fluffed hair even mimicking a raccoon's striped fur, and the way he'd stuck himself out of the door, it was priceless. He emitted a dry, drawling laugh that wanted to border on a cackle -the kind he made when he was highly amused and caught off guard by the source of it.

Mick shook his head, smile turning from wistful to rather pleased with himself. "Didn't think you were going to find that as funny as you did, oh man!"

"Well, I never thought of it that way, but I can't stop seeing that now. That was a good one," agreed Don. "Just hoping it's not too accurate."

Mick's smile vanished. "What do you mean?"

"That it's not something that's going to lead to more clashing to sort out later if they don't want to cooperate to get it finalized with the style we're aiming for on the rest of this album."

"Whoa, let's not start down that way," warned Mick. "It's not funny like that. Come on, if they're down there having their fun, we might as well make sure we have our own fun up here. What say you?"

Don sprang a rare grin -one that looked a little sinister, but nevertheless, a grin. He set his lyric notebook down on the floor beside the couch, deciding it could wait until later then.

"Is there anything worth watching on?" he asked.

Mick rolled his eyes.

"Don, if I think it's all shit and boring stuff, I _know_ you're not gonna like anything."

"So, you think we have to stay here then?" Don asked. "Can't we go find something to do somewhere else?"

"Man, you're just now asking me?" Mick whooped, jumping up and grabbing his keys. "Let's get out of here for awhile. What made you just decide that finally?"

Don shrugged, gathering his notebook and rising from the couch to follow Mick.

"George wanted me out, so I'm going out. If he complains later, it's on him, because I can tell him I did what he told me to do -I did what he said for once!"

Mick shook his head and laughed again. He only wished Don's playful side would come out more often -it always got him cracking up.

"And, you know what?" said Don, making a point of showing his folded up paper with directions to George's house, and then stooping down to leave it tucked under the edge of the area rug. "On the way back, let's make a point of going down a different side road and checking things out. I think that might just be more productive for us today."

And Mick definitely wasn't going to argue with that.


End file.
